Ireland pays up for abuse

Teddy Gill often resorted to eating newspaper and cardboard to curb his hunger pangs at St Michael's Orphanage in Waterford, Ireland, during the 1950s. Later, when he was transferred to St Patrick's, Upton, an industrial school in Cork, he was regularly beaten.

"It was a prison. There were bashings and beatings. They put the fear of God into us because it brought control," 53-year-old, Mr Gill said yesterday.

Rejected by his mother, who could no longer afford to clothe and feed him and his 13 siblings, Mr Gill was removed, at three years of age, from a foster family where he suffered from neglect.

He spent the next 13 years in institutions, enduring mental and physical abuse.

This year, Mr Gill, who now lives in Horsham, applied for compensation through the Residential Institutions Redress Board, set up by the Irish Government in 2002 to assist people abused in state institutions, including orphanages, industrial schools and reformatories.

More than 150,000 children and teenagers lived in residential institutions in Ireland between 1920 and 1990, and many were abused by the clergy.

It is estimated that thousands of children who passed through these institutions migrated to Australia and most are unaware of their right to compensation.

Irish lawyer Peter McDonnell is visiting and Mr Gill addressed a seminar in Melbourne last night to alert other victims.

"We want to tell survivors that the Irish Government has apologised and that survivors have a right to financial redress," Mr McDonnell said. "Every one of those thousands of people who were institutionalised has a right to lodge a complaint because all of them were starved, all of them were subjected to child labour and all of them were deprived of an education. In the majority of cases there was also physical abuse and, in too many cases, sexual abuse."

So far, only 2165 applications have been made to the Redress Board, most from within Ireland.

Mr McDonnell said the average payout had been for $A140,600. The highest to date, is just under $A500,000. The board has also established an education fund for families of the survivors.

"I just want to say to other victims, that I know it can be difficult digging up old memories and it may never take away their pain and suffering, but they're not going to get paid for silence," Mr Gill said.